


Brother Let Me Be Your Shelter

by fandm_writer



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Five Hargreeves Loves His Family, Gen, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, Hurt/Comfort, Number Five | The Boy Does Not Technically Get A Hug But He Gets Some Much Needed Catharsis, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Whump, and some affection, canon character resurrection, i guess?, wibbly wobbly timey wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27288598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandm_writer/pseuds/fandm_writer
Summary: Everything seems like it’s crumbling around him. But then...well, Five gets some rest and some much-needed clarity.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 220





	Brother Let Me Be Your Shelter

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this all makes sense and everybody enjoys. Continuation of this post. [ https://disco-tea.tumblr.com/post/633314541209632768/imagine-a-heavily-injured-five-waking-up-in-a ](url)

Time travel is a crapshoot. 

Five Hargreeves knew that better than anyone. He had lived the repercussions of it more than anyone. It was messy and complicated and there were always... _side effects,_ regardless of whether or not you used a briefcase. Though he had to admit, the repercussions of _not_ using one was almost always guaranteed to be much worse. So really, he should've known better. He should have expected something like this. He should've paid closer attention to the faint stinging that lingered in his chest even after he put the Handler's bullets back in their barrel. 

It wasn't that he hadn't noticed, because he had, somewhere in the back of his mind, he had registered it. It was simply that he hadn't cared at the time. He had been so caught up in the wave of soul-deep relief that came with seeing his family very much alive and not massacred on the frozen barn floor. He had been too preoccupied with finding a salvageable briefcase and finally _finally_ getting them all back home. 

The pain had simply been background music. Another disjointed melody in a loud chorus of injuries. Because the truth was, there had been some sort of pain or another humming in the background since the moment he landed back in 2019. It was the sting of the open cut on his forearm, the pull of the stitches on his shoulder. The gnawing ache of the hole the shrapnel left in his side. It was the dark purple bruises from all the fights he’d been in, and the _crack_ of the frying pan as it collided with his skull. 

So what was one more pain? It was irrelevant. It didn't matter, so long as he could keep putting one foot in front of the other. So long as he could make sure his brothers and sisters were safe. In hindsight, he should've known better, because when was the last time anything went smoothly for him?

He felt the strand of white-hot melody push its way to the forefront the moment they landed in the Academy foyer. He recognized the faint sensation of something warm and slick seeping slowly through the fabric of his uniform. The adrenaline of it all was wearing off, and he could feel himself coming apart at the edges. Yet still, the date on the newspaper had taken preeminence. 

"April 2, 2019."

There was an eruption of laughter and relief, and for the first time in 45 years, Five felt like he could breathe. Like he had released a breath he had been holding nearly his entire life and his lungs were free to move again at last. 

_It was done._

_It was over._

_But was it really?_

_They were alive._

_It was okay._

However, the cascading rush of euphoria was short-lived, because the moment Five took a step towards the living room, he felt a harsh current of pain slam into him. It rippled through his chest and back, wrapping its tight coils around his midsection. His vision tunneled and suddenly the entire world was off-kilter. After that, he was only vaguely aware of the bodies that walked past him, of the voices, of the _clink_ of glasses at the bar. 

" _Why is there a painting of Ben over the mantlepiece?"_

Five felt himself sway on his feet and his hand shot out to the nearest door frame, gripping the mahogany tightly. He really should check under his shirt.

The thought slipped through his grasp as quickly as it had come, because suddenly there was another voice entering his perception. 

"I knew you'd show up eventually."

Five felt nausea wash over him. It was _his voice._ It was the voice he had heard every day in the apocalypse. The voice he thought he had left behind for good back in 1960s Dallas. _Dad_. 

_Shit_. 

Five's gaze snapped to the fireplace, his blood running cold. Sir Reginald Hargreeves stood up from his wingback chair and all they could do was stare in shock. Luther started talking to him, but Five found he could hardly hear them, too preoccupied with the icy tendrils of dread that had taken hold of him. His thoughts began to spiral quickly. Oh so quickly. 

_What had they done now?_

_If this had changed, what else had?_

_How far did this reach?_

_It wasn't right._

_It still wasn't right._

_Nothing he had ever done was right._

_He couldn't do anything._

_He couldn't fix anything._

_He couldn't—_

"Home? This isn't your home.” Reginald's words felt like being dunked into ice water. Like being waterboarded during training. 

A wheezing inhale pushed its way through Five as he sucked in a barely audible breath. When had he started wheezing?

There was a clatter of footsteps somewhere above, and all their heads simultaneously swiveled around. 5 figures (and a cube?) were now stationed on the upstairs walkway. They stood tall and proud like they owned the place, and towered above them all like they were better. They wore uniforms, not unlike Five's, only the colors and the crest were all wrong. 

"This is the Sparrow Academy."

Five grit his teeth, fingernails digging into the doorframe. He couldn't do this. He physically could not do this right now. He didn't have the strength. The stamina. The cognitive function. He wasn't even sure he could conjure the energy to perform a spatial jump. He didn't want to do this, he didn't want to talk. He didn't want to deal with the reality that they had screwed it all up _again_. All he wanted was to sleep. To sleep and to find out why there was a pain in his chest and blood rushing in his ears. 

Yet, no matter how much he wanted the universe to stop throwing surprises at him, yet another figure entered the fray. Five actually stumbled back.

"Dad, what's going on—" The voice of his dead brother drifted through the air only to cut off mid-sentence, eyes wide as he looked at them. 

The ground all but shattered beneath Five's feet. 

"You guys!" Ben suddenly rushed forward, slamming into Klaus and Diego and nearly knocking them both over. 

The next few moments were a blur of confusion and voices and desperate hugs as nobody (not even Reginald) seemed to quite know what was going on. And for a moment, nobody actually cared, because it was _Ben_ and he was _alive_ and _right there_ and _breathing._

It wasn't until Vanya finally released their Number Six from her bone-crushing hug that they finally gleaned some clarity.

"I saw you—you faded—how did you—" she stammered, tears pooled in her eyes. 

"I don't know," Ben replied through breathy laughter. "All I know is after I—I woke up here yesterday. I was alive and everything was different and you guys weren't..." he trailed off for a moment, the look on his face faltering as he glanced around. "I'm—I'm really glad you're here."

There was silence for a beat as they all smiled back at him, tears glistening in many of their eyes. Even Diego. 

"Don't you ever do that again, you little shitheel." The moment was broken as Ben was suddenly engulfed in another hug from Klaus. 

A small chorus of laughter and overlapping voices broke out, and all Five could wonder was if he had actually died in that barn. Surely not, because he didn’t deserve this nice of an afterlife. The boy had yet to move away from the door throughout the entire exchange, partly from shell shock, and partly because he wasn't sure what would happen if he did. 

Eventually, Ben's gaze drifted over to him, a bright smile lighting up his face. It had been 45 years since Five had seen that face. But it was him. It was really him. 

"Ben," he found himself whispering without fully realizing it. 

Five blinked several times, attempting to clear the fog from his vision so he could get a better look. He wanted to memorize that moment, tuck it away in the back of his mind for the rest of his life. However long that may be. 

Low ragged breaths tore through Five's lungs, but somehow, in spite of them, a small and genuine smile pulled at his lips. 

Time travel was a crapshoot, but it had somehow given them all their brother back. So maybe it was worth it. 

"Five, are you okay?"

He wasn't sure whose voice it was that had asked him, and he didn't think he would ever know, because at the same moment, it all fell away. His knees gave out beneath him and he clattered to the floor with a hollow _thud_. 

The last thing he saw were the faces of his siblings. _All_ of his siblings. And he decided in that moment, it didn't actually matter what was wrong with him. It didn't matter how much pain he had endured. It didn't matter where exactly the Handler's phantom bullet had hit. What mattered was them. They were all alive. They were all together. And if it was the last thing he ever saw, it would be fine by him. 

* * *

Everything was a murky blur after that. Five heard voices and talking and maybe some yelling, but it was all distant and muffled. It was like being underwater but still being able to breathe. 

Was that what it was like for Diego?

He let himself drift away through the waters. The sweet dreamless waters that for once in his life, offered him no hellish nightmares to sleep through. There was no blood or death, nor visions of mangled corpses and ash dancing behind his eyelids. There was just sleep. A sleep that he wouldn't mind never waking up from. 

He did wake up though. Eventually. 

The first thing he became aware of was that some undetermined amount of time had passed. How much, he didn't know. It could've been hours. Or it could've been days. 

Five's eyelids slowly fluttered open, the room around him a dim haze. _The infirmary_. It was the infirmary he was in. He wasn't on the operating table at least, but rather a smaller, rolling medical bed off to the side. His chest still burned like fire and his limbs felt heavy, but he was still alive, he supposed. 

_He was alive, and he wasn't alone_ , the thought faintly flickered through his awareness. 

There was a warm and somewhat heavy pressure by his feet. It was like having a sleeping cat on your bed. Except it wasn't a cat, it was... _Vanya_. 

Five blinked several times, both out of surprise and because his eyes were still adjusting to the darkness. Vanya was indeed curled up on the foot of his bed, her eyes closed and her breathing steady. There was even a small white pillow tucked beneath her head. 

Five's bleary gaze lingered on her for a moment more before moving to the next figure in the room. And the next. And the next. 

Allison was asleep in a chair just off to his right, a blanket draped over her. She was out like a light, but her posture somehow managed to seem vigilant. Like she was standing guard or watching over him. 

Klaus and Ben were on the floor at the foot of the bed. They had made themselves a makeshift spot out of blankets and the sort and Ben had fallen asleep using Klaus's jacket as a pillow. 

Further to the right was Luther. And Five realized this because it suddenly occurred to him that he could hear low and rumbling snores right by his ear. He slowly turned his head, ignoring the spark of pain the motion caused. Luther was on the floor too, only he was leaned over and in an upright position, his oversized head sharing some of Five's pillow. 

A moment more, and he became aware of two separate and contrasting feelings in his left arm. One was the pull of an IV wrapped with medical tape, and the other almost felt like—

Five's gaze immediately snapped to his left hand. For a moment, all he could do was stare. There was indeed another hand loosely holding his own, and it did, in fact, belong to his knife-wielding maniac of a brother. Diego was sleeping in an additional chair that looked like it had been stolen from the kitchen, his head leaned on the bed, and his fingers lightly holding Five’s.

The 58 year old teenager felt his breath hitch in his throat, every instinct in his body telling him that he should jerk his hand away or blink out of the situation entirely. But he didn't. He didn't move a muscle, and he told himself it was because he was too tired. Or because doing so would just wake them all up and turn it into a bigger scene than it already was. They were both lies, he would acknowledge one day, but for now, it didn't really matter. 

Five let his gaze roam the room. Let it linger on his sibling's sleeping forms. Allowed himself to feel the strangely comforting and grounding presence of his brother's hand. He let himself feel the weight of Luther's dense head against his shoulder, and the way that Vanya had fallen asleep holding his blanket-covered foot. 

He felt something unfurl in his chest. Something warm and new and old and strong and terrifying. He felt it spread through him and fill all the drafty cracks of his tired soul. So maybe he was happy that he had woken up. Maybe he had a bit of hope that things could get better. That there might one day be more to his life than an endless apocalypse. It was still April 2, afterall. Maybe the day after wasn’t so bad. 

He swallowed thickly and blinked rapidly, banishing the watery blur from his eyes. He drew in a quiet breath and...and he smiled. Watery and unsure, yet soft and bright, his eyes crinkling at the edges. He smiled as he looked at all of them once more, and he smiled as he closed his eyes and let the waves of sleep slowly wash back over him. 

He closed his eyes, and for once, he didn't worry about tomorrow. He didn't worry about how he was going to have to grill Reginald in the morning about what he had done and the changes he had made. He didn’t worry about figuring out how Ben was back (not that he was complaining). He didn't worry about the explanation he owed them all. 

And he knew he would have to explain everything, because people don't just collapse from bullet wounds that don't actually have any bullets in them. He was sure he would never hear the end of it, but he would explain it all in detail and tell them exactly what happened. He would tell them he had wound back time and his body simply...hadn’t gotten the memo. Not completely anyway. 

But somehow, by some miracle, Five wasn't worried about it. 

Maybe everything wasn't exactly okay. Maybe things were still messed up. But they were all alive and they were all together. Five Hargreeves had his family, and in that moment, he knew in his heart that they loved him. 

So long as he had that, he knew that he could handle whatever else the universe had to throw his way. 


End file.
